S. Deenadayalan, popularly known as Deen, is a HR professional  who has been doing pioneering work in the field of High Performance Work Systems. By establishing CEO, an organization of his dream, he offers guidance in the areas of strategic and management development to various corporate houses in India and Multinational conglomerates.

Deen is a sociology graduate, with degrees in Law, Journalism and Post-graduation in Social Work. He has over three decades of experience in the field of strategic business processes and HR and has been trained in US and Canada on High Performance Work Systems.

He was formerly the Director (Business Services & HR), Dupont and has held positions like Vice President (HR) – ITC, General Manager (HR) – Titan, to name a few.

Deen has been consulting various organizations across the globe, including Fortune 500 companies. Through his innovative empowerment model, he brings in a change of mind set for delivering business value. Apart from business consultancy, he contributes his time and effort to develop and sustain community development initiatives in Social Service Organizations. His passion lies in Organization Visioning, Leadership Mentoring and Coaching, Developing Organizational Capability, HR Strategies & Systems Development besides Inspiring Young Entrepreneurs.

In an exclusive interview, Deenadayalan shares his journey as a HR professional.

About your education and early career?

I studied Sociology in Annamalai University, which was more by default than design. I then pursued PG in Personnel Management at MSSW from 1972-1974. Those days, this course was called ‘Post Graduate Diploma in Social Service Administration’.

Mrs. Mary Club Wala Jadhav offered me a scholarship and was a great source of inspiration. Before my results, I was offered a job at Enfield in 1974. But, I did not accept it as the canteen coupon was offered only to me and not to my other two classmates, who had also appeared for Interview along with me.

I joined Prof. TK Nair for a project on Food and Agriculture Organization in Karaikal and did my internship on ‘Agrarian relationship in Pondicherry’. Here, I learnt the meaning of ‘social divide’. I went to meet the local land lord in Nedungadu. He did not allow me inside his home, because I had interviewed an agricultural worker before.

Later, Mr. P.M Mathew, a Director in Mettur Beardsell and part of my VIVA panel, remembered how I did my presentation and offered me a position at Mettur Beardsell. Ms. Indira Nooyi (that time Indira Krishnamurthy) along with the best of all Management Trainees from Business Schools were working here and I was the only one from Madras School of Social Work.

Can you share your stint at NTTF?

Mr. T.S Gopalan, a leading advocate, advised me to pursue my career in Skill Building. It was another 7 years of outstanding learning at NTTF where I had the opportunity to conduct several social experiments. From offering 50% of seats to Municipal School Students to up-skilling the blue-collar employees to become entrepreneurs; from capacitating union leaders to become entrepreneurs to managing labor relations —each of them was a new experiment and a successful experience. The much talked about ‘Learn, Earn and Grow model’ was seeded here in 1985.

NTTF is a role model in skill building for our country and Mr. Regruraj, the present Managing Director, continues to be my guru. I am happy to say that I am the uninvited ambassador of NTTF.

Your efforts to bring True value of asset building into practice?

I worked for Fenner in Madurai for a short period of ten months. The management used to offer 500 rupees as Long Service Award to workers instead of one sovereign of gold (that costed 400 rupees and was awarded earlier). The Union Leader Mr. Kondal refused the cash award and insisted only on the gold sovereign. 

We all thought that he was a fool to demand an award of a  lesser value. But, he told us that the gold will reach the family and will have more value in the coming years, while the cash given to the workers will be spent within the next day.  He taught me the concept of ‘True Value of asset building’.

When I joined ITC at Mantralayam, we used to negotiate with employees and village leaders. Two village leaders, from opposing groups, would bring 100 of their men with guns and demand employment. Feudalism was high and we needed a lot of money to get things done.

The equity shares that ITC offered to its employees were taken away by Mr. Reddy, one of the village leaders.

After I learnt about this issue, I told the employees to pledge their share with the bank and purchase a home. This idea came from the learning I gained from Mr. Kondal—finding ways of enhancing employee assets. 

What were the innovative programmes that you launched at Titan?

At Titan, I had immense opportunities to conduct various social experiments. We visited villages and recruited students from rural areas, especially girls. We set up transit houses wherein each house had a Foster Parent. All the theory that I learnt in Social Work, I could put into practice—like social care, peer counseling, group work, etc. While some succeeded, few failed.

Mr. Kondal’s thought of people having assets and not money had a huge impact on me. As Titan did not advocate for higher remuneration for team members, I suggested to the management “Own you own House” scheme which they accepted in 1988. The company purchased 100 acres of land at 1 lakh rupees per acre. 400 employees opted to purchase the land in instalments of 100 rupees a month. Today, it is the state of the art colony in Hosur designed by Mr. Charles Correa.

Titan also did a hobby inventory and had 10 cluster club activities like folk songs, debate, wall graffiti, etc.  On the third year of my joining, I took all the employees on a picnic and started building fellowship. We mainstreamed nearly 250 differently-abled which no company has attempted till date. Today, the Dehradun Factory has 80% of hearing impaired employees.

Titan Assembly workers wear white uniforms while other manufacturing center workers wear Green color uniforms. We formed a Rural Women Society so that they could be engaged to wash the uniforms every week. Titan paid the society for their services and this helped the rural women. 

We also partnered with Myrada, ActionAid, and several other organizations for ancillary activities. Before the word CSR was born, Titan was into it. I incorporated the concept of ‘ISR’ meaning ‘I am Socially Responsible’ by having my team members participate in NGO activities.

Please tell us about CEO?

CEO has been registered as Centre for Excellence in organization. CEO was started in 1999 to pursue my passion as Socio-business entrepreneur, and till date we have made a significant impact at bottom of the pyramid. Very less attention is given to people working in this segment and I am proud that my team under Mr. Mahendran’s leadership has 140 members and have impacted people at all levels. We have created careers for several thousands of Municipal school students living in rural areas and organizations like GE, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr Reddys Lab, Strides, Granules, Corning, TAFE, Ashok Leyland, Titan, NTTF, CEAT, Ray Chem, KEC Electric, Indofil have facilitated people at bottom of the pyramid grow.

We have also supported NGO’s like M.S. Swaminathan Foundation, CBN, Youth for Jobs, Enable India, CSIM and many NGOs.